So a reviewer posted what seemed like a fair-minded, reasonable if not overly-glowing review of the Avengers movie, and made the mistakes of 1) not being 100% positive about the film, 2) accidentally calling a character by the wrong name (since fixed), and 3) being a woman, resulting in some of the following somewhat over-the-top responses in the comments:

“This pathetic ***** will do anything to get some traffic for her shit little blog. Hope it paid off you stinking ****. Perhaps next time the guy who’s **** you sucked to get the job will send someone who’s actually capable of remembering a character’s name for longer than two minutes.”

“She asked her boyfriend what score she should give. Just stick to rom-coms, bitch.”

“Hope your site got the hits it so desperately craves, you sad pathetic excuse for a human being.”

“You actually wanted this movie to suck, didn’t you? I’ve seen your other reviews, and your bias opinions on pretty much everything. You spelled names wrong, you got names wrong, You somehow managed to think that explosions and aliens means Transformers. You have no business being a critic if you are going to act like this.”

“Bitch what the fuck is wrong with you, I knew there would be bad reviews from some people but not from spiteful assholes who bash shit for attention.”

“She didn’t bash it for attention, it’s starting to become clear she’s a DC fangirl, so she actually had an agenda.”

When folks tell you “don’t read the comments” — well, this is pretty much the reason why. I hope the people who left these comments are proud of themselves. (Sadly, they probably are.)

And as esteemed pal Ken says in his tweet on the topic, the last paragraph of that review “is a call to action for anyone making superhero ANYthing.” Well said, friend. Too bad the point will be missed by the folks desperate to defend their beloved film from what they somehow see as such a horribly negative assault.

I noticed that the main rage target here was how it was a “rotten” review on Rotten Tomatoes, and as such would prevent The Avengers from getting a 100%. There are people that angry about Rotten Tomatoes ratings?

Some people seem to be angry that she gave the movie a three out of five, but went with “rotten” anyway, allegedly to be the first to do so. I think that could have been a valid criticism, but alas, not anymore.

Sadly, yes. There were people infuriated by the fact that Armond White gave Toy Story 3 a “rotten” review, thereby spoiling its otherwise perfect record. Armond White is a jackass, but it was still pretty sad to see people staking so much on something so trivial.

See also: fanboys desperately obsessing over The Dark Knight surpassing Titanic at the box office. I always wanted to take them gently aside and explain that they don’t actually get any of that money.

If you think this is bad, you should see the community of “fanboys” who get riled up over Marvel changing the spine logo on the Marvel Masterworks series, because it screws up the look of their collection on the bookshelf. Talk about guys needing to get laid.

Speaking of which, how do the Masterworks and DC Archives sell at your store, Mike?

1. Nerds complaining.
2. …about someone’s opinion.
3. …about a movie that they have not yet seen.
4. …so that an arbitrary meaningless number doesn’t go down.
5. …and they get to be misogynist about it.

So yeah, this is one “RON PAUL 2012″ and a discussion of what exactly constitutes pedophilia away from being the entire internet in microcosm.

Mike,
Well, this is the negative result of the internet. For all the great things we can discover, see and enjoy on the net, it’s this wave of cowardly (my term) responses that the anonymity of the internet allows. It’s my guess that if all these “commenters” not only had to use their REAL name and actually responded to Ms. Nicholson face-to-face, that they’d sheepishly back away and keep their obnoxious and vile responses to themselves.
Opinions are one thing.
Being an a-hole with one’s opinion about another’s opinion is quite another.

“I’m surprised, I mean, actually surprised in the sense that it is contrary to my experience, that she didn’t get any actual rape or death threats.”

Well, she got “I hope you die in a fire.” I didn’t read beyond that. *Nothing* anyone says about pop culture merits that. I don’t even particularly want, I don’t know, Fidel Castro to die in a fire. (Crushed by two tons of Swamp Thing chalk, maybe… But it would be a waste of chalk.)

In 1982, there was a movie named “Six Pack” starring Kenny Rogers as a racecar (notice the palindrome) driver who informally adopts six young kids whom he meets after they strip his car for auto parts in a small Texas town. It came out at roughly the same time as Grease II… as a pre-teen, I had the traumatic experience of being dropped at the theatre by my mother on a Saturday afternoon to see both of these films on a double bill, and I have been scarred ever since.

Anyway, one of the child actors grew up to have a bit of success, and when asked in an interview what it was like to work with Kenny Rogers way back when, allegedly answered, “Acting with Kenny Rogers was like staring into a large, empty hole.”